God's grace is always available.  The "ask and you shall receive" thing is more of a "you have to recognize the problem exists to maximize the healing" thing.

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.  Then said Jesus, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."  Luke 23:33-34

I must admit that I was surprised that there were not more responses to the inquiry.  My own belief is that God's forgiveness is always present but we can only access it when we confess our sin and desire forgiveness.  However, I have some friends who beleieve that God does not forgive us unless we ask. It is the same with us.  We must forgive even if the person who offended us does not ask for forgiveness. Our forgiving them is contingent on their asking.

Slate, I think the forums ebb and flow in different times of the year. And I will definitely say I miss a lot of the people who left Bnet because of the ownership/technology changes.  But then, I've been here nine years...ten if you count my previous name scyranow.

I actually agree with you, that His forgiveness is always available even if you don't explicitly say 'forgive me'. I thought that the 'condition' for forgiveness was more about repentance and forgiving others than on saying the right words.

OTOH, there is definitely a psychological/spiritual benefit to confessing sins and asking for forgiveness, because doing that means that I have to face up to the fact that I've been doing something wrong and have fallen short.  It deepens your understanding of exactly what sin is and how to do better in the future. But it would seem that this is somewhat separate from forgiveness. I don't know.

There is one issue that I have had with forgiveness (but thankfully never had to face). Aside from still forgiving the person, what do you do when the person you forgive (and knows you have dones so) acts like and actually believes that once they have been forgiven it means you have absolutely ZERO problem with what they did and they ARE allowed to continue with whatever they did and you cannot have a problem with it? But then I thought, when we forgive omeone, we should also include that we did/ do have a problem with what they did, we do not like more accept, nor condone it, but still nonetheless fogive that person. But what if that person still nonetheless views the situations as I said previous (this person more then likely would NOT be a Christian, IMO)? How do you deal with the situation? And what if they constantly try to have a relationship with you, and expect that you will remain friends with them (I am not talking stalking)? To me the trouble is when a non Christian wrongs a Christian. How Christians and non Christians normally view forgiveness quite differently. We know that we are commanded to forgive, just as Christ forgave us (Colossians 3:13 paraphrase). But the problem is, when a person has a wordly view of forgiveness when we do not, things might not go so well. I guess in the end all we must do as Christians is follow God and forgive others as many times as is necessary. Question: when a situation arises that requires forgiveness, and one ends up having to forgive that person over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over (and so on), is it ok to sever the relationship? Why or why not? Does it make a difference if the person is Christian vs non Christian?

JFG